Abstract

The authors propose and demonstrate an alternative memory concept in which a storage island is connected to a nanowire containing a stack of nine InAsquantum dots, each separated by thin InP tunnel barriers. Transport through the quantum dot structure is suppressed for a particular biasing window due to misalignment of the energy levels. This leads to hysteresis in the charging/discharging of the storage island. The memory operates for temperatures up to around and has write times down to at least . A comparison is made to a nanowire memory based on a single, thick InP barrier.

Received 20 April 2006Accepted 01 September 2006Published online 16 October 2006

Acknowledgments:

This work was supported by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), the Swedish Research Council (VR), Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the EU program NODE 015783.